


Not That Jewish

by JU_Zumester



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Pouty Rorschach, Pre-Roche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4987996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JU_Zumester/pseuds/JU_Zumester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the holiday seasons roll around, Dan wants a break from the usual head-bashing of nocturnal vigilante life. Rorschach doesn't share his sentiment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not That Jewish

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I know, it's October, not exactly the right month for a Christmas fic. But I got this idea spontaneously and it was too cute not to try out. Sue me.
> 
> Intended this to be slashier than it was. Oh well. Maybe next time.

 

* * *

 

Jack Frost breathes cool winter air onto your windows, freezing the condensation left there and turning it to ice. Beyond the glass, a man in red and white paces the streets, begging strangers for money. A different species of beggar from the one that you usually see on the streets, this one doesn’t ask for himself but for the poor and needy around him. He doesn’t collect spare coins in an overturned hat or an empty guitar case. He collects them in a red tin bucket, generating attention by way of the jingling of bells and phrases like, “Merry Christmas,” and “Happy holidays!” You wonder briefly what santa’s sleigh bells sound like--if it’s anything like the incessant ringing that permeates the walls--and just when you stopped believing in such things.

You and Rorschach haven’t talked about Christmas: whether the patrol will be longer or shorter, or whether any patrolling should be done at all. You’re eager to do your job, eager to save lives shoulder to shoulder with a man who shares your vision, but something seems wrong about slaving away in alleyways under the cover of darkness, roughing up the same old street gangs and drunkards.

You’d rather spend your evening doing something with a more instantly gratifying reward. And maybe that’s a little selfish, but you just don’t feel like you can get the adrenaline flowing the way you would any other night. Not with carolers wandering the streets and holiday specials on the television and thoughts of giving in your heart, sappy as that may seem. You don’t feel like you’re giving when you slam a street thug into the wall and threaten him with jail time.

And yet, evening rolls around, and it comes time to don the suit. Reluctantly, you strip down to your underwear and begin slipping into the skin of Nite Owl, transforming from an everyday bookworm to a life saving vigilante. Sometimes, sitting at the table, sipping coffee as the sun climbs into the sky, the life you lead at night seems unreal. Impossible. But behind the lenses of Nite Owl’s eyes, impossible isn’t even a part of your vocabulary.

Downstairs, your television set transitions from the news to a string of Christmas songs. They speak of love and happiness and heartwarming nights in front of the fire. You become painfully aware of the fact that at the end of the day you are completely, undeniably, irrefutably alone.

You sigh, fingers running over Nite Owl’s armor. Over the cowl. Stop at the goggles hanging around your neck. You can’t do it. You can’t spend the night exchanging blows.

You have something better in mind.

* * *

 

Rorschach is waiting for you in the basement. He wanders past tables covered in stray bits of metal, tools, oily rags and bottles of solution with little discrimination and little interest. Stalling. Perhaps antsy in anticipation of the night to come. He has every reason to be--it’s not like you’ve ever skipped out on a Christmas before.

You’re honestly not sure why this one feels so different, but it might have something to do with the fact that for the first time in years, you’ll have no one to celebrate with. No girlfriend. No immediate family. No best-friend-from-college. You enjoy the constant, adrenaline charged companionship offered by Rorschach from within the rotting veins of New York, but tonight, you need a little more than someone to fight with.

When you emerge through the basement door in a pair of jeans and a holiday sweater, the ink of his mask splits into diverging pools, spiraling thoughtfully across his face in mercurial blossoms. “Daniel,” he says. It’s not a question. His stance seems to say: _Oh, it’s you. I was expecting someone else._

“Hey… So look,” you rub at the back of your neck, nervous. You’ve never asked something like this of Rorschach before, but you know already that he isn’t going to like the idea. Rorschach’s is a cold, chronic kind of dedication. The kind of dedication that isn’t blotted out by the singing of Christmas carols and the laughter of children. “I was thinking that, what with it being Christmas and all, maybe we could take a break from the whole vigilante agenda. Just this once. I mean--”

Rorschach sticks his hands into his pockets. Adjusts his stance. “If I had wanted a break, I wouldn’t have come.” Outside, the wind howls. Calls your names. “Besides, thought you were Jewish. Didn’t celebrate Christmas.”

You suppress the urge to roll your eyes. “I’m not that Jewish. Of course I celebrate Christmas.”

“If you’re so passionate about it, let’s celebrate it out there. On the streets. Protecting the people when they need it most.” His voice is as gruff as usual. Ink concentrates at the bridge of his nose. Defiance.

“What the people need is to be inside with their families, sipping hot cocoa and listening to the holiday specials.” You march down the steps to the basement floor, at the same level as Rorschach though still towering over him by half a foot. “Don’t you have someone out there waiting for you?”

Silence hangs in the air, spoiling and leaving a rotten taste in your mouth. He makes no attempt to answer you, instead leaving the silence to fill in the potholes of your logic.  _Idiot_ , you think, scrutinizing that expressionless face. Trying to make sense of the patterns you find there, etched out in black and white. Rorschach doesn't have anyone. Of course he doesn't. He's Rorschach. He's never given you a reason he had anyone waiting for him at home. In fact, most of his habits (lack of social skills, aversion to intimacy, inability to navigate small talk, tendency to steal food) support the theory that he lives alone. It's not like Rorschach is the type of person that makes friends easily. Even within the Crimebusters, you're the only one that has the patience to deal with him. The only one who pays enough attention to decipher his little noises, tilts of the head, shifting posture, his inky face; all of the qualities that hang on him when words don't.

It's more than likely that home, to Rorschach, means an empty apartment in a run down corner of New York--and you've just made that fact more glaringly obvious. On tonight of all nights. He had plans for Christmas Eve, plans with you, to do something that he’s passionate about (maybe the only thing that he’s passionate about) and you took that away from him. Threw in his face the fact that he’s… Just as alone as you are.  
  
You're a fucking _asshole_.

“Will return when it’s more convenient." Rorschach turns on his heel and makes for the tunnel entrance, kicking up gravel as he goes. You're pretty sure that it's as close as your partner will ever get to a hasty retreat. It’s also completely unlike him to give up like that. Not to care about the patrol or whether or not you're going to be there.  
  
It's the first time you've brought his personal life into the mix.

He’s probably off to knock heads without you. In the bitter cold, with lights strung up on frosty windows and stores open late into the night for those buying last minute gifts. Fighting on icy pavement, in record lows.

You take a few world weary steps in his direction. The words are almost a threat. Almost a dare. Almost a challenge. “You could come inside, you know! You don’t have to fight crime alone in the cold, and you don’t have to celebrate in your house by yourself.” A guilty anger burns hot within you. You want to fix your mistake, erase your lapse in judgement, but you don’t know how to shake the bitterness out of Rorschach’s bones, so you resort to scathing words. They’re the only thing that seems to work on him. “You could don't have to go out onto the streets to save people. You could start by saving yourself."  
  
They're big words, and both you and Rorschach feel the weight of them settling onto your shoulders. The burden of them is uncomfortable at first, but you strengthen under the weight, and in the end, you are better for it.

He halts briefly, and you think you've won. “Fought crime without you, Daniel," he says, "and I can continue, if you'd like." The corners of his trench disappear into the shadows and the sound of his footsteps fade into obscurity.  
  
It's a huge slap in the face. But maybe you deserve it.  
  


* * *

 

You're not sure what brought you to the dimly lit aisles of a corner store. You know that a petty gift won't fix anything. A hastily bought and even more hastily wrapped piece of "I'm sorry", awkwardly shoved into the dour man's arms. Deepening an already deep silence. Rorschach has always scoffed at luxury and materialism. At the pseudo pleasantries implied by the exchange of presents between colleagues. And yet here you are, one of the last-minute-shoppers, wracking your brain for something that would please a man you hardly know.

At least, you tell yourself that you hardly know him. You hardly know him by society’s terms. You don’t know where he lives, or what his family is like, or who his friends are, or what his hobbies might be (besides kicking criminal ass). You don’t know whether he had any childhood pets or what his favorite snack is or what kind of job he holds or what his life was like up until now or what school he went to or whether he played any sports there. You do, however, know him in the subtleties of his offensive techniques. In his manner of speech. In the noncommittal patterns of his mask. In the way the two of you fight, back to back, knowing exactly where the other will move without having to look, defeating assailants like the arms of a single warrior.  
  
You know him in the quiet, unobtrusive nature of his presence, wandering herds of ink speaking for him when no words are necessary. You know him in the way he removes his gloves after a particularly nasty teeth, sliding them off his hands with his teeth and inspecting his knuckles carefully. You know him in the food he steals from your fridge when you're not paying attention.

You know him in the maze of scars zigzagging their way across his body--many of which you've personally cleaned and stitched--and can recite their origins in detail from the memories of your heart.

You smile at the thought that knowing these things about him is more valuable than knowing his favorite color or whether he’s a cat person or a dog person (purple, probably, from the looks of his suit, and Rorschach has always seemed more of a cat person).

There's a lot to be learned about a person from the broken shards of their personality. A lot that can be discovered without spoken word.

Tired eyes focus in on a row of cards. “Ho ho ho,” one says in big, bubbly candy-cane letters. The depiction of santa on the front, cheeks even redder than usual, is what ultimately puts you off. “To hell with this,” you mutter, and march out into the night.

* * *

 

You return to the house and transform into Nite Owl with practiced ease, in and out in less than five minutes. You know that the only gesture Rorschach will appreciate is seeing you on the streets, enacting justice. It’s the language that guy speaks best; one of planned attacks, silent nods, whispered strategies, stitched wounds.

Out on the chilly streets of New York, you are in your element. And it’s the same as it’s been every other Christmas Eve. A lot of petty theft. Some stray gang activity. A little girl lost in the cold--comforted by gauntleted hands, brought to a police station that quickly got to work finding her parents, making you eternally grateful that you decided against sitting inside by your meager plastic Christmas tree.

No Rorschach, though. You patrol the same blocks that the two of you usually stick to, but he’s nowhere to be found. You wonder whether you’ve really pissed him off. Whether he’s intentionally avoiding you. Roaming other streets and intentionally turning away when he sees you coming in his direction.

Eventually, you give up wondering. Sigh and lean against cold brick that threatens to leech the remaining heat from your core. Catch your breath and wipe accumulations of sweat from your brow before they have the chance to evaporate off of your bare skin. Decide--watching the sunrise through night vision goggles--that it’s time to go home.

March past apartment complexes and tenement buildings and try to imagine happy faces, grabby hands under Christmas trees. Shiny new toys. Try to remember your own past Christmases and what it felt like, not knowing what awaited you on Christmas morning but knowing that whatever it was, it was going to be amazing.

You navigate the tunnel in minimal light, welcomed by respite from the wind and the familiar scent of home. Oil and latex and post-patrol adrenaline. Your sore feet take tired steps up the stairs and you flip the light on, revealing the Owlship, cozily nestled under its tarp, and cases of equipment and… a trench coat, bundled in the corner of the landing, white face hidden in the shadow of a grubby fedora. The sight almost makes you jump, but you’re glad you don’t, because that would just be embarrassing, for a masked hero like yourself to flinch at the sight of his partner (even with so much adrenaline running through your veins). “Rorschach?”

The form stirs slightly. The brim of the fedora tilts upwards in minuscule increments, just enough for shifting clouds of black to get a reading on you. “Went out patrolling,” he observes.

“You came back.”

“Didn’t… nnk… Seemed wrong, turning down a… kind offer. Apologies, Daniel.” The words don’t come naturally to Rorschach, and they sound a little foreign on his tongue, but you’ll take it. You’ll take it gladly.

“You’ve been waiting here all night?”

Rorschach stands up, brushing off his trench and sticking his hands in his pockets. “Wasn’t sure where you were, with Archie still here. Decided it best to wait.”

He looks burned out, muscles tense after spending hours hunched in the same position. It’s such a Rorschach thing to do that you can’t help but smile. The man stiffens at that (you wouldn’t have thought that was possible). He’s trying to figure out what’s in your head, seemingly without success. Maybe it's just as hard for Rorschach--a man of sparing emotion and encompassing blacks and whites--to read your expressions as it is for you--a man of words and thoughts--to read his silence. “Does that mean you’ll come in for some coffee and d-- Well, I guess it’d be breakfast at this point.”

Ink pools around Rorschach’s cheekbones, splitting into amorphous patterns. He nods. “I’d enjoy that, yes.”

You don’t want to stifle the chuckle rising out of your throat, so you don’t. “Merry Christmas, Rorschach.”  
  
“Hrmm… Merry Christmas, Daniel.”  
  
“Pffft, don’t celebrate Christmas. As if,” you murmur under your breath, and open the basement door, ushering your partner inside. “Come on. I have a sweater you can change into…” You grin at the twitch of his shoulders, waiting for him to protest. He doesn’t.  
  
You want to apologize but doubt he'd appreciate it. Apologizing would mean recognizing the fact that he is alone. And Rorschach isn't alone. He has you.


End file.
